Joy Williams: 99 Stories of God

The Lord didn’t like enclosures. He was surprised He knew how to create one. The volunteer inspected it and found it adequate.

Some people put a little grass inside, she said. You can get a square of it at Home Depot.

Home Depot! the Lord cried, horrified. I will scatter some seed and have it grow.

She looked doubtful. They like mulberry leaves, we’ve found. Kale. No avocados. They’re not like chickens. You can’t toss anything and everything in there. Some people treat them like chickens.

The Lord was given his tortoise at last, a glorious young tortoise. They said very little to one another on the way back, both rather worried about this adoption business.

The Lord was in a little town in Maine, inland Maine, at the humble home of a psychic. There were dishes in the sink and unwashed clothes in the hamper. The calendar on the wall was not of that year. There were lots of small stones in little woven baskets, and dog hair, though no dog seemed to be present. The usual.

Outside it was raw and windy. The trees were broken and shorn of leaves. The ground, too, was broken and stiff. There was a faint fusty odor everywhere, and cold. All was cold. Still, some solitary bird was flinging out its frail song.

The psychic tried to see the Lord, but nothing was coming through. She thought: This can’t be that unusual.

The silence was not uncomfortable, but it was getting late.

Finally she said: You always wanted to be a poet.

This sometimes worked with her more difficult clients. Or not difficult as much as … reclusive . Brought them out a bit.

Nothing. Still nothing. She couldn’t see Him. She needed to find the anchor chain.

Then she thought: Maybe she didn’t have to see Him. Maybe she was putting the cart before the horse in this case. Maybe she should just go directly to the question most everyone had and visualize from there.

What’s going to happen after I’m dead?

Joy Williamsis the author of such classics of American fiction as Taking Care, Escapes , and Breaking and Entering . Harold Brodkey called her “the most gifted writer of her generation.” 99 Stories of God , a Byliner Original, marks the publication of her first book of fiction in nearly a decade. She has also written several widely anthologized essays on ecological matters. Williams lives in Arizona, Wyoming, and Florida.

Read more of Joy Williams’s best stories at Byliner.com

Photograph by Rollie McKenna

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